ATI SAPPHIRE RADEON 9550 256MB - Restarts and In-Game Freezes

I ran the MSI Live Update thing just to check for any recent updates. It found a few so i tried the mobo drivers and they installed fine. Then i tried the VGA drivers (and the picture attached is the list i got - are they each the only VGA update i need, just newer versions; or are they all part of one big update?).

However I downloaded the first file and installed it. Then installed the second, thinking that they were each indivildual updates. Obviously something went wrong as after i restarted the Catalyst Control Center icon dissapeared and my computer is acting grapics-wise as if there were no drivers installed at all (i.e. slow-bitty loading of pages and not ATI icon or file in the start menu. What on earth has gone on here? Somehow the "update" has uninstalled the Catalyst Control Centre but not replaced it! Ahhhh. Help please. Shall I just bung in the old driver CD and then do another update?

Okay...i was just about to let my computer meet my back garden via my window when the Catlyst Centre decided to work (only after a full uninstall-reinstall). But I still have the updated motherboard drivers instaled

Please tell me if you find the mobo on the MSI website coz I cant.
I guesss from this point I will have to do the following things:
-install SP2 if possible
-get better PSU
-another stick-o-ram

SoF2 worked for a lot longer than it ususally does but still crashed. Even after multiple driver updates something is causing it to just stop responding. Its not overheating (Temps were CPU 43C and System 32C).

This is really very annoying. Im beginning to doubt a memory problem because it takes some time to crash and other games work fine on my computer.

Ive sent a request via snail mail to Microsoft for SP2 on CD. I already have all the patches you've put a link to, but thatnks for looking. It looks like I may either have to just get a new gfx card if i want to play that game. Oh well thanks very much for your comments all much appreciated.

Ive finally installed SP2, and still the game hangs and the error message appears. If it were a driver problem it would mean that it would crash straight away surely, but it usually takes 5mins to crash. Also its probably not overheating as i can play other, newer and more demanding (CPU terms) games than this one. Im baffled, im sure you are too but any other suggestions wud be great.

After finally sorting out the problems I decided to have a look inside that crappy PSU that came with my case. The first thing i noticed was that the "Void if Removed" sticker had been chopped down the middle...not a good start i think. So i proceed, and to little surprise i see some evidence of just how awful this PSU is. The problem?: There was a big black wire that was cut in half; two open ends of a wire that were supposed to be connected...Ah. My trust in quality PSUs has been strngthened even further.

I've been reading the thread, and the suggestions that have been given are awesome. Really helped a lot. The problem I've noticed after scouring the internet is that ANYONE who has a sapphire radeon 9550 256mb model has had this problem as well. Another thing I've noticed is that it pertains directly and exclusively to 3d elements attempted to be generated by the card. I was just running the little car demo in the catalyst control center, and it instantly crashed. All of my drivers have been updated, save for my bios. I'm going to keep trying everything, but I'm pretty sure that from what I've seen in all of the message boards so far, this is a problem that almost EVERY 9550 user has. If I figure out a good solution, I'll keep you guys posted, in the meantime, keep at it! don't give up! I'm willing to bet you'd solve at least hundreds of users problems if you solved this.

My one fear is that the solution will be: Sapphire makes a crappy product.

Through a combination of illness, moving house and a broken computer i havent been able to keep the thread up to date, apologies. But i think you may be right VerticalFactory, in seeing the trend of the sapphire product.
Ive put in a new PSU and stick of RAM and seems to be ok now (apart from the in-game crashes which still persist.)

I think compatibility with other hardware may be the issue or just a poorly made gfx card. What problems have you had specifically VerticalFactory?

Basically I've noticed an inability to operate at high resolutions (crashes often at 1280 x 1024, and has serious graphic artifacts at 1024 x 768) and whenever you attempt to generate ANY kind of 3d polygons or anything realtime, that would use openGL or direct3d, the screen just crashes right out. The computer keeps going, and I assume everything else works on it fine, but the display just craps out. I've done some research on the sapphire 9550 in particular and have discovered that sapphire cuts a lot of corners on their cards, and in fact uses a different design spec from ATI in the card design altogether, which can result in a lot of problems. First off, let me tell you that this is NOT a gaming vga card, by any means (sorry....I feel ripped off too, but I just wanted to use it for 3d modeling, lol) if you want to get a card that'll be able to handle the good stuff, hl2 fear, rotk, etc. etc. and you still want it to be AGP, then I would recommend ATI's 9800 model. A lot more stable, I've had mine at home (the 9550 is at the office) for like 2 years and it's always delivered. The key I think is to make sure you're buying from ATI themselves and not just a licensed manufacturer like sapphire, who can apparently make sucky cards with ATI's permission.

-phew-

That said, some of the helpful things I have been trying, and am trying are to make sure that, specifically, the AGP drivers for your chipset are installed. I had the drivers for my pci bus and motherboard and all installed, but I hadn't installed the driver for my agp slot, which with some chipsets is a different download. Do you have a VIA chipset? Apparently a lot of VIA motherboards had a lot of issues with both the 9600 vga card and it's closest relatives (which explains why I was able to find this problem on so many message boards), and at least with my giga byte mother board, they had developed a bios update that specifically addressed the issue of the faulty agp interactions. I'll keep you posted as to whether this works with my motherboard or not, as I'm going to have to flash it multiple times from the factory bios version. But I would recommend if you have a VIA chipset on your motherboard to look around your motherboard's site for BIOS updates that pertain specifically to the 9550 and 9600 "bugs".

This problem is definitely what you in the UK call a "bugger" and what we in america call "FRIGGIN HORRIBLE PROBLEM"